


secondhand sunlight

by windingwoods



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windingwoods/pseuds/windingwoods
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You mean tomes?”</p><p>“I mean I’m the adult and I say it’s the same thing.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	secondhand sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is my first fef fic (look at this alliteration) and i haven't even been able to play the game yet, Everything Is Fine  
> anyway! babyrealms don't get to exist in this and considering severa's not so hidden knack for taking care of others please take a moment to picture her getting swarmed by tiny toddlers. it's such a lovely mental image... it warms me up...

Ophelia does this thing sometimes, Severa muses, when she looks at people with eyes so wide it makes her look like she’s trying to suck the whole world in, retain all its deepest secrets in the glint of her pupils. She’s doing it right now too.

“Aunt Selena, say—”

She tugs at the hem of Severa’s vest even though there’s no need, round fingers clutching to the fabric, leaving traces of _things_ Severa doesn’t really want to investigate right now.

“Say, can you do magic?”

She asks it with the particular kind of voice children use when they’re convinced they’re asking the most important question mankind could ever come up with, eyes now full of the most serious looking brand of awe Severa’s ever seen.

She wonders if it’s a childhood thing after all, thinking that adults can do anything.

“Nope,” she says in all honesty, because there’s no way she could ever lie to Lissa’s eyes, to Owain’s daughter. To the child sitting on her lap.

“I don’t have much magic in me, sorry ‘bout that.”

The harsh truth doesn’t seem to rock Ophelia’s tiny boat of stubborn fascination all that much, it gets merely brushed aside with a dignified huff from a dignified nose.

Severa’s starting to think she might have a lot to learn from this kid.

“My mother did though,” she goes on, and that seems to get Ophelia’s attention back in full swing. “She preferred lances but she could work some magic, she— she had books.”

“You mean tomes?”

“I mean I’m the adult and I say it’s the same thing.”

Ophelia’s eyebrows shoot up almost comically as she _gasps_ , tugs at Severa’s vest again with one hand as she flings her other arm around. “It’s really not! Tomes are tomes! Books are—”

“Books?”

When Ophelia squeaks in protest Severa can’t help but smile, hands ruffling up her hair hoping that it will be enough for her not to notice just how terribly fond she’s feeling right now. She will make sure to tell her later.

“One day you’ll see,” she murmurs, mostly to herself, lets the hues of the ylissian sun lighten her memories as she smells Nohr all around her, on her clothes and her skin and Ophelia’s warmth on her thighs and chest.

Severa lulls her to sleep with tales of a world that’s hers to claim, if she will ever want to.


End file.
